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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26095402">Thunderclap</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity'>stateofintegrity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Mention of Animal Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:53:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,724</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26095402</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's a good idea to come on in out of the rain.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Thunderclap</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The structures in MASH 4077th were, by their very nature, collapsible; the “M” in MASH stood for mobile; nothing was allowed to remain in camp that couldn’t easily be packed and moved to the next site. When the autumn storms came to Korea, those bendable, foldable, eminently pack-up-able dwellings suffered. Rain lashed roofing, exposing weak spots, creating leaks. Thunder rattled stakes and support beams. Lightning struck so close that it robbed everyone of sleep, left them rubbing their eyes the next day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Very few souls ventured outside in such weather; the army was much better at manufacturing weapons than it was at either making or distributing rain slickers and waterproofed boots. Maxwell Q. Klinger had a good reason for trying to dodge between the raindrops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had to knock hard on the door of the Swamp. “Come!” Winchester shouted over the wind. Seeing the bedraggled Klinger, he demanded, “What are you doing here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To anyone else Winchester would have sounded annoyed; Klinger thought he heard something else at the heart of that cultured voice: fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know how you feel about storms, Charles.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s Major, Corporal.” His voice became a shield now, a ward between him and the slender, dark-haired man dripping on the floor of his tent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged. “I’ll call you whatever you want when I’m underneath you, Major.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles sighed. “Don’t be crude, Klinger. I know it comes naturally, but please make an effort to rise above it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The storm came closer as Klinger looked at him across the tent. His dark eyes were tumultuous, speaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles answered them without meaning to. “Klinger, that was a lapse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe to you, Major. It was more than that to me and you knew it the minute you kissed me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was afraid,” said Winchester, mostly to himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” Klinger agreed. “And I’m afraid all the time. But the sun doesn’t just come out and make it all go away like it did for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t help you, Maxwell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger smiled at that - an aching smile. “I helped you, sir.” When he saw that Charles would say no more, he turned back toward the dark. “Good luck weathering the storm, Major.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stayed sitting for five seconds. Seven. When he stood, he didn’t put on boots or a jacket or a hat. By virtue of longer strides, he easily overtook the bedraggled Corporal, his hair slicked to his scalp. Winchester’s fingers tangled in the hood of Klinger’s jacket (they’d not made the jacket with a hood that extended far enough to save Klinger’s nose from raindrops) and he tugged backward, making the Corporal’s thin shoulders go up, making him turn in his grasp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait. For godsakes, stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span> It was a black night and rain made wet darkness out of churned, black earth. Except for the OR, the camp lights were low. Lightning sang out in the dark distance and the chemicals living in their skin flinched under the threat conveyed by that deadly radiance, told them to run. Between white blasts, Charles looked on Klinger’s face: the wide, white eyes. “You look like you’re drowning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You just noticed?” Then he shook off the pain that Winchester had caught a glimpse of. “Guess I shouldn’t say that, Major. No one else has either.” He found his fingers, pale and cold and wet and pried them loose. “C’mon, Major, let go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that what you really want?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. But I saw your eyes the day after that storm. I knew it was gonna hurt. Once is enough.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t make any promises. Not in Korea. Not in a war. “Maybe,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger didn’t allow him to lie. “Maybe you’ll take me back to Boston? I know you don’t think much of my smarts, Major, but I’m not that stupid.” He had wriggled loose and drew the wet cloth around him. “I shouldn’t have let you in the first time.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he had and now all the locks were broken. “Get out of the rain, Major. Wipe off the mud. Turn up your music and maybe you won’t hear the storm.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You aren’t the first person to hang me out to dry, Major. I’ll be just fine.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next time a storm came, it put Winchester in a terrible mood. He stomped around and took an undignified pleasure in snapping at those with little power to snap back: Igor, the nurses… but his preferred punching bag was nowhere to be found. He never would have admitted it, but it was Klinger he wanted to yell at, slender, pretty Klinger who had asked him for help he couldn’t give. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the rain cleared enough to walk through camp, Winchester decided to do laundry rather than sit in the Swamp listening to intermittent raindrops and the banter of his childish fellow surgeons. He tried for a smile but it came out as a grimace; at least he’d have something to write to Honoria. She’d get a kick out of the idea of him measuring laundry soap. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As he entered the laundry room, the storm picked back up- sheets of water dumped from the sky as if angels were hard at work bailing out the floor of heaven. Charles shrugged; he was dry here and had a task. Granted, it was an idiotic, mundane task, stories below him, but it was something to do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger came in after him, muddied, bruised, and soaked. When he saw the Major, his expression didn’t change, but something came into his eyes: a “you’ve got to be kidding me,” look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t greet his superior officer; he was too exhausted to care about being polite. Instead, he stripped out of his soaked clothing. Charles averted his eyes, watching the lightning as Klinger changed into dry things and dumped the clothes (along with others he’d brought, some masculine, some femine) into one of the washers. As he started it, the power failed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger sighed. It was an uncharacteristic sound; it took time for Charles to name it. Klinger sounded purely </span>
  <em>
    <span>defeated</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was aware of your love of clothes, but I had no idea that mere laundry had the power to bring you down like this. You must learn some moderation, Corporal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He intended these words as a sort of sarcastic olive branch, an attempt to return to their old back and forth. He regretted them, first, when the silence stretched then again when Klinger’s eyes went dark with rage. He had no trouble recognizing </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’d be the one to teach me, sir. You’ve got moderation locked right down.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klinger… Max.” He’d never heard the other man sound like this: cold, cruel, like Charles could drop dead right in front of him or disappear and he wouldn’t even register the fact. “What happened to you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something in his tone broke the spell. Klinger sighed again, brief burst of rage passing like a summer storm. That was what Charles </span>
  <em>
    <span>thought</span>
  </em>
  <span> anyway, until he caught a glimpse of his eyes and realized Klinger was just too tired to sustain it. “Nothing, Major. Just a hard day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will listen to you if you will permit it.” He would have offered to get the slighter man a drink if not for the rain; Klinger seemed to need one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not much to tell. A couple of villages flooded - about three miles from here. Me and the other corpsmen went to help get the people out…” He went quiet again and it seemed like he would say no more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he spoke, not wanting to, words bubbling up because the stink of the floodwaters were still in his nose, in his skin. “...the animals. You surgeons… your hands</span>
  <em>
    <span> were too valuable</span>
  </em>
  <span>. There was a cat in one of the huts. She put her kittens in a pie pan, they said, like she knew the water was coming.” He cried without realizing he was crying. “I buried her. They’re feeding those babies with an eye dropper.” Tears ran silver down his face. “It’ll happen to me,” he said, sobs fracturing the syllables so that Winchester had to listen hard and recreate the words; it made him think of his sister. “I’ll try to do the right thing and this place will kill me like that tabby cat.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winchester knew </span>
  <em>
    <span>what </span>
  </em>
  <span>to do; only an unfeeling automaton or a fool wouldn’t. Charles was neither. But the last time he’d touched Klinger, he had done far more harm than good. He didn’t dare reach for him now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger looked at him, tears still streaming, but there was no exasperation in his dark eyes, and no surprise. Turning, he walked right back out into the rain, preferring, Charles surmised, the risk carried by lightning to his uncaring company. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next Winchester heard from or of Klinger was in a medical confab at the foot of a hospital bed. Hawkeye Pierce’s eyes were more grey than blue with concern. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened?” Winchester asked, eyes flicking up and down Klinger’s bedridden body. The small, dark haired man was asleep or unconscious and there was an eerie aqua tint to his lips. Without looking, Charles knew that his nail beds would also be blue: a clear sign of low blood oxygen. Pneumonia, Winchester knew: do not pass go, no chest X-ray needed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he actually meant was </span>
  <em>
    <span>why do you both look so uneasy? Why so concerned? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Disease </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>kill more men here than bullets, but they had squared off and defeated far more serious ailments. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unless, the physician in him piped up, unless… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk noticed him at last and  gave a grim smile of welcome. He explained what the illness was (Charles was too edgy to be annoyed by this) then gave him an expectant look before shaking his head, remembering. “That’s right. You weren’t here then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles was impatient, wide-eyed. “Here when?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>What are you on about? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klinger got sick last autumn too. Bad enough for Potter to pull his stateside records. I don’t know how Radar got them but he did.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After hearing what those records contained, Charles felt more furious than usual with the rank stupidity of the US army. “They never should have taken him. Lung scarring is enough to rate a 4-F.” He wished then, wildly, that he might find the doctor who had okayed this young man for service… and break his fingers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re right,” Hawk told him, “but when did the army ever do the right thing?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You anticipate complications?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Serious ones. I think we should send him to Seoul. We’re low on beds as it is and we’re anticipating casualties tonight.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winchester knew these things. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thought of Klinger walking into the rain, Klinger with floodwater soaked through to the pretty things he wore under his fatigues, Klinger shivering alone in his bunk because Charles had been too stubborn to hold him, to warm him. “Put him in the Swamp. Let me care for him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ looked at him as if he’d proposed replacing post op with a beauty parlor. “Alright, Dr. Schweitzer - who’s replacing you in OR?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Battalion aid can send a surgeon. Just let me see him out of danger.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ kept staring. “Why </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because, gentlemen, this is my fault.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I left him outside like a cat in the rain. Because the storms his touch wrought in me were more frightening to me than the exterior storms he sought to shield me from, because… </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ snorted. “You’re not all that godlike at an operating table- Charles- and you’re sure not powerful enough to go around </span>
  <em>
    <span>causing</span>
  </em>
  <span> diseases!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk gave the mustachioed surgeon a warning look. “What do you mean, Charles?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Corporal was unwell,” </span>
  <em>
    <span>traumatized</span>
  </em>
  <span> “after a flood. I should have talked him into an exam then. I was, of course, unaware of his past history, but that’s no excuse.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I knew he was drowning. He said as much. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Now he really </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span>, lung tissues fluid-choked, a physical manifestation of the black waters of terror that lapped at him, dragged him under every day. “I ask you for very little, gentlemen. Allow me to make amends for this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seoul has better resources,” Hunnicutt countered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is also thirty miles in a cold ambulance on an unsafe road. If he worsens, I will send him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was enough for the Chief Surgeon. “Alright, Charles, he’s your puppy. Get him well.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The stuffy surgeon wrinkled his nose. “The Corporal is much more like a kitten,” he said without seeming to realize what he was saying. “Thank you, Pierce.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As he walked away, Hunnicutt shook his head. “What the hell is going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk shrugged. “Storm season in Korea? Who knows. C’mon, let’s call Battalion Aid. When this shift is over, we can drink Charles’ Scotch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me </span>
  <em>
    <span>that’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>not why you kept Klinger here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course not. If that kid wakes up somewhere strange by himself, he’ll hurt his lungs worse just trying to get a breath. Charles being meek is just a fringe benefit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ paused, processing. “Meek, huh? You don’t think…? Over </span>
  <em>
    <span>Klinger</span>
  </em>
  <span>?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk shrugged again. “Guess we’ll wait and see.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Twenty bucks says you’re so far off base the team’s given you up for dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk shook his hand. “Deal. C’mon, maybe the Colonel will go in on this one.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*** </span>
</p><p>
  <span>To the surprise of everyone who noticed, Charles employed no help in moving Klinger to the Swamp and getting him settled there, even though doing so meant unhooking equipment and enduring the rain, but he never complained. He didn’t even seem to notice the terrible inconvenience of it all. All he could see was a form rendered too thin by poor nutrition and overwork, shivering with fever. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He undertook the measures (unsatisfying as they were) permitted by his environment- stoking the stove, covering Klinger in blankets, adjusting the IV solution of fluids and antibiotics. Then he spoke. “I would undo it, if I could, Max. The awful things you’ve seen. The fear you’ve felt. My folly. This time the storm you’re facing is in </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>… but I won’t allow you to face it alone.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, knowing he was liable to catch hell from his colleagues for it and really not giving a damn, he got into bed with the smaller man and held fast. He petted Klinger’s hair and had nightmares about drowned kittens, woke to check the IV and slept again after listening to Klinger’s lungs. He didn’t even need his stethoscope; any doctor more than a year out of residency knew that knife-over-whetstone rasp. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was well past 2 AM three days later when Klinger woke in the Major’s arms. He coughed and tried to wriggle out of the embrace, but Charles was instantly awake and stilled him. “Easy. You’re having enough trouble catching your breath. What do you need, Max?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was confused, wandering in memories of the flood. “Don’t wanna drown, Major.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I promise that you will not. I will not allow it.” He positioned the smaller man on his chest. “Just hold onto me. The water cannot reach you up here.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The dream/memory receded. After a time, Klinger asked, “Why are you doing this, Major?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t wish you to weather any more storms on your own, darling.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger tried to lift his head, but Charles didn’t allow it. “I will go when you are fully well,” the surgeon promised- quiet and brave. “But I wish you would not ask me to.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You, you wanna stay all the sudden?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is not sudden. I want you to stay with me. Here. Back home. Always. I… I wanted it that night… but the truth is, Max, I wanted it </span>
  <em>
    <span>before</span>
  </em>
  <span> I ever touched you. I was simply too much of a coward…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To come in out of the rain?” Klinger offered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something very like. Would you… would you let me come home with you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re literally holding me up so I can breathe easier - how can I say no?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles squeezed him tighter than he ought. “You scared me terribly, you know? More than once.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger just snuggled into him. Given where he was - where he had been invited to be - he didn’t think the Major was going to have too much trouble with storms anymore. As for his fear? Klinger thought that when he got well he’d find them a lot easier to face. He knew he wouldn’t be facing them by himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>End!!</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
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